Bad News

In the second novel in the series, Patrick Melrose battles with his drug addiction over a hallucinatory weekend in New York.

‘I’ve loved Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. Read them all, now’ - David Nicholls, author of One DayBad News is the second of Edward St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the aristocratic addict, Patrick. Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge – desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past. Bad News was originally published, along with Never Mind and Some Hope, as part of a three-book omnibus also called Some Hope. ‘The Melrose novels are remarkable – ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written’ - Peter Kemp, Sunday TimesPart of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.